Saudi-led coalition pilot and his assistant were killed in a helicopter crash in Yemen

A Saudi helicopter on a reconnaissance mission has crashed in Yemen’s eastern province of al-Mahrah, killing its pilot and co-pilot.

According to Arabic-language al-Omanaa news website, the chopper crashed into Tanhala Mountains on Friday.

Colonel Turki al-Malki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen, claimed that the Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopter went down due to a technical failure.

Colonel Turki al-Malki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition against Yemen, claimed that the Boeing AH-64 Apache attack helicopter went down due to a technical failure.

The helicopter, which belongs to the Saudi ground forces, allegedly came down “when it was carrying out its tasks of fighting terrorism and smuggling in al-Mahra in Yemen,” the Saudi Press Agency quoted Malki as saying.

Yemeni sources said that Saudi forces are spread in the oil-rich areas of Mahrah, adding that Yemen’s former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi visited the province recently and was received by Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Yemen Mohammed al-Jaber.

The news comes as the Yemeni army, backed by allied fighters from Popular Committees, has been conducting attacks against Saudi Arabia in retaliation for the kingdom’s aggression on their country.

On Thursday, the Yemeni forces fired a homegrown ballistic missile on a military base in the southern Saudi region of Najran.

Saudi Arabia leads an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Iran-backed Houthi rebels forced him into exile.

Saudi Arabia and its regional allies launched the devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of reinstating former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and crushing the Houthi movement.

Some 15,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured since the start of the Saudi-led aggression.